Thousands of University of Nottingham staff told they are at risk of redundancy

Thousands of staff at the University of Nottingham have been told to prepare for redundancy as part of swingeing financial cuts that academics say will harm the institution’s future. The university’s administration sent letters to 2,700 staff on Tuesday, notifying them their role was at risk of redundancy after its leadership said it could run out of money by 2031. The redundancies are the latest sign of the funding squeeze and slump in international student numbers affecting even highly-ranked institutions such as Nottingham, a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities. The university wants to cut more than 600 academic and support posts through a combination of voluntary and compulsory redundancies in subjects and departments with low staff-to-student ratios, including physics, medicine and health sciences. The University and College Union (UCU) opposes the cuts, arguing that Nottingham’s £85m budget deficit last year was the result of an ill-fated expansion campus known as Castle Meadow, which is now being written off, and one-off costs from the previous round of redundancies in which 350 jobs were lost. Andreas Bieler, a professor of political economy and the UCU branch vice-president, said: “We would argue that there are a lot of homemade problems, including the Castle Meadow campus, but also their financial strategy of always turning surpluses directly into investment into new buildings. …